


the terrors (come hold me as they scream)

by Synapse



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Awkwardness, Bart Allen Needs A Hug, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Nightmares, Platonic Relationships, Team Bonding, Team Feels, Tim Drake Needs Help, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, season one-season two gap, season two-season three gap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:41:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24900982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synapse/pseuds/Synapse
Summary: Tim's new to the Team, and adjusting to his new normal. It turns out that nightmares are a common part of a superhero's life- and he has to learn how to deal with more than just his own.Angst, fluff, and lots of Tim Drake and Team-related feels.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Kon-El | Conner Kent, Tim Drake & Bart Allen, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson
Comments: 15
Kudos: 108





	the terrors (come hold me as they scream)

The Cave is noisy, lively with activity as Tim’s fingers move swiftly over his tablet keyboard. Their clicking is barely audible beneath the hustle and bustle of the mountain. Sounds echo here, in this gigantic matrix of rooms and high-ceilinged chambers: Tim can barely remember a moment of silence in its midst. 

The first time he’d come, maybe. He remembers the Team staring at him in shock. Superboy's expression had twisted into something angry. Wondergirl did a startled double-take. Dark storm clouds had rolled into Artemis’s eyes, reflected in most of the others. Gar had grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the room. Mere seconds after they were out of sight, the others started shouting. Stunned silence gave way for a flood of outrage. 

Not at Tim, for once. At Nightwing. At Batman, standing behind him. 

“What are you _thinking_?” 

“Is he even trained?” 

“ _Did you forget what happened to Jason?_ ”

Only Gar and Cassie had stayed out of the conversation, choosing instead to quietly sit beside him in the kitchen as he wrapped himself in his cape. They’d been apologetic, but he remembers the way their eyes had slid away, not quite willing to meet his gaze, the red of his costume, the emblazoned ‘R’ on his chest. 

Tim’s not sure that the Team accepts him fully even now. Sometimes he feels the other’s eyes on him, and he doesn’t know if it’s because he looks too much like Jason or because he isn’t close enough. He can sense their disapproval when he duels in the training room. The elders watch him, looking for any sign of weakness, and he knows they find him lacking. Landing a punch, wriggling out of a headlock, pulling himself up on the bars- none of it comes as easily as it should, and after months in the Batcave Tim still isn’t anywhere _near_ what Jason or Dick had been as Robin. And the Team knows it. 

What he doesn’t understand is their contradictory approval: Kaldur’s simple _good work_ and Artemis’s pleased hand on his shoulder, Cassie’s encouraging grin as she hauls him up from the mat or the way Wally tosses him a water bottle halfway through with a reminder to “hydrate or diedrate." Even Zatanna and Tula have offered to help him train for magic, and Conner showed him how to avoid breaking his fist in a fight with a strongman. 

It’s all so welcoming. So accepting. Tim can’t remember meeting anyone so eager to have him in their midst. Certainly not his parents, and acceptance from his classmates was infrequent at best. 

Part of him keeps expecting an end. A “gotcha!” or Nightwing breaking the news that they had decided he wasn’t fit for them, that they didn’t want him, and they’d only been so kind for their leader’s sake. 

For now, though, he’s grown more comfortable in his surroundings. Comfortable enough, in fact, that sometimes he comes by after school to work in the common room. Like now. Tim’s settled in one of the chairs at the counter, hooking his feet over the bottom rung. The movements of the base's inhabitants wash over him as he works. 

Just in front of him, the fridge opens and shuts in the space of the moment, Kid Flash whizzing by right before leaving for his mission. Dick’s passed out on the couch, flopped over its green expanse with one arm hanging halfway off: there’s homework scattered on the table beside him and an open textbook sitting on his chest. 

Somewhere deeper in the mountain, Wolf barks playfully, probably in answer to a game of fetch. The wavering notes of Zatanna’s voice occasionally float into the kitchen as she casts spells in the training room. Cassie, wandering through, offers a nonchalant wave. 

Tim waves back. As his eyes return to the tablet, they catch on his empty coffee mug. 

That won’t do.

He sighs, slipping his feet off the lower rung of the chair. Time for a break.

As he walks to the coffeemaker there’s a low groan nearby. He turns in the direction of the television and stops dead. 

Dick’s arm has crept from dangling off the couch to resting over his chest, hand clenched into a fist. His sunglasses disguise his expression, but Tim can see his jaw clenching. A sympathetic shudder runs through him in answer. He sets his mug on the counter, eyes never leaving Dick. 

According to Cassie and Gar, it’s not a good idea to wake up anyone in the Team when they have nightmares. Gar’s told them stories of bruises and cuts, of finding Kid Flash miles away only seconds later, of the permanent crater in Conner’s wall. Gar himself rises as a venomous snake, or a massive tiger, or an armadillo. So far they’ve avoided incidents with Cassie, Bumblebee, and Mal, but _that,_ Gar has told them gloomily, probably won’t last long.

For the Bats’ part… Tim saw Bruce on fear gas, once. He doesn’t want to know what any of them do.

He’s saved by a black blur, hurtling head-on into the room. 

“Nightwing?” Conner whispers, stopping by the sofa. The older teen leans over, eyes creasing in worry, and barely spares a glance for Tim in the kitchen. Shifting his weight, Tim glances awkwardly away. Moments later his gaze is drawn back. Morbid curiosity, maybe. 

Conner kneels beside Dick. For all his temper, the bigger teen is surprisingly gentle, both now and during training. At the start, Tim never would have pegged him to be the one to softly wake his friends. Now he knows better. It probably helps that Conner’s one of the few who can take the rain of blows that comes so often with abrupt awakenings. 

A minute passes. Dick’s fist clenches harder, knuckles whitening, leg twitching against the cushions. Tim jerks when a strangled yell rips through his leader's clenched teeth. A shock of adrenaline hits his system in reply, waking him up better than the caffeine ever could.

Conner, on the other hand, barely moves. “Nightwing,” he says, quiet and firm. “ _Nightwing_. Wake up.”

Dick bolts up like a shot, the textbook flopping off his chest and falling to the floor with a muffled _thud_. His sunglasses go flying. Now exposed, the red rims of his wild eyes are visible, tears trickling down his ghost-white cheeks.

“Jason,” Dick gasps, staring at nothing.

Something in Tim’s chest clenches. It isn’t the adrenaline.

Conner’s shoulders slump slightly. “You’re in the Mountain,” he says, his low timbre barely reaching the kitchen. “D- Nightwing.” 

Jerking, Dick whips to face him, back ramrod straight. Conner meets his eyes and opens his arms wide. Gradually the tension drains away from Dick’s shaking form. Glistening tears replace it as he bites his lip, casting his gaze to the floor. Conner sighs. He reaches out and pulls the younger teen into a hug. 

A startled grunt escapes him. Then Dick buries his head in his friend's shirt, shoulders shaking silently.

Tim turns away, wincing. His heart squeezes, a hard burning lump against his ribs, and suddenly the coffee doesn't seem so appealing. 

He knows how much Dick’s endured, or at least, knows as much as a person can without having been there. Nightwing is strong, a hero, the first Robin, the one who had once laughed as though he knew all the secrets in the world, or so the recordings told. Nightwing is a _leader_ , a friend, a mentor: a man who laughs at gravity, who knows exactly what to say when Tim’s curled up staring at nothing, who taught him to bind his wounds and showed him where Alfred keeps the best cookies, and whose steady voice worked him through the panic of his first mission gone wrong. What Nightwing represents, who Nightwing is, is everything Tim wants to be, what he _has_ to be. 

There is something infinitely wrong about seeing Dick- the one who was so often bright with merriment in the early pictures and recordings, who makes the Team laugh with but a well-placed word or jibe- left weeping and broken in his teammate’s embrace. 

His _teammate_. One of the six, twelve, _nineteen_ people Dick had gotten to know so well he could lead them through thick and thin with barely a raised complaint. Dick knew them so well that all he had to do to comfort the forlorn or end arguments was to step in and speak a few carefully chosen words. 

How is Tim ever going to live up to that? 

The Team is a well-oiled machine, longtime friends with bonds and memories far beyond anything Tim could ever grasp, anything he's ever known. He should know: he’s watched them from afar for the last four years, observed them through the blurred lens of cameras and distorted glow of the pixels on a screen, playing and fighting and working with and against one another. Reports, videos, rumors- each collected in his computer, pinned on boards, and highlighted in printouts. Yet their easy manner, the lilting banter, how they always seem to know what to say… that escapes him. 

For all his effort he has no idea how they do it. From what he’s seen and heard, Jason had slipped in near-effortlessly from the beginning, accepted by the Team in days, never questioned. He knew right from the start what to do. So does Cassie. So does Gar. But Tim’s done everything he’s learned, everything his parents taught him, and he hasn’t figured it out. How can he not know this? 

Conner picked up Dick’s distress in all the chaos of the cave, knew exactly where to find him, how to answer, how to help. Perhaps he could dismiss it as a remnant of the mind link. According to M’gann, it had done something after a particular exercise early on, and the original six happen to be hypersensitive to each other now...

But that’s not just it. It’s whatever _Tim’s_ missing, and Tim’s supposed to be Dick’s successor, Robin’s successor. He’s been observing Dick for longer than Conner’s been _alive,_ for God’s sake. What he’s doing right now should be what _Tim_ is doing, and he doesn’t have the faintest clue where to start. 

A copper tang fills his mouth as his teeth dig too far into his lower lip. Wincing, he moves to leave and catches a glimpse of Conner and Dick again, sitting on the couch. Their shoulders are pressed together. The sunglasses rest in Dick’s limp hands, blue eyes glassy as he stares at them. Neither speaks. A sheen of tears coats Conner’s cheeks, barely visible in the low light.

Ribs burning as his heart struggles to break past self-imposed bars, Tim leaves the coffee mug and slips quietly from the room.   
  


* * *

Time passes, and there is no longer a common room for Tim to sit in. 

There is this instead: 

A room in the Watchtower, off to the side and small. A bronze plaque beside the door reads “BLACK OPS TEAM” in squat, bold black letters.

There is this, too:

Two couches, woven blue surfaces patchy and worn from age, rest beyond a few tables and battered folding chairs. A little kitchenette sits to the side. There’s a closet. A vast computer setup is situated on one wall, screens flickering with scrolling text as new information comes and goes. One closed door opens into lockers and showers. A vast window looks out onto Earth’s great expanse. Beyond shimmering blue oceans lies space, stars pinpricks of sunlight in endless velvet darkness.

And there is this: 

Team notes and reports left scattered across the tables, a few empty cups sitting lonesome on the kitchenette counter. Tim slumps wearily in his chair at the computer. His fingers play over the screens as he accepts notifications, confirms analyses, organizes data. Bart sprawls over the couch behind him, either awake and playing on his phone or napping. Tim hasn’t turned to check and he won’t for a while, too distracted to count his teammate’s breaths and draw the right conclusions amid his work.

Then there’s a repeating rustling noise behind him, followed by a hissed grunt. Tim only half-registers the sound, lost in flowing numbers and words and blocks of data. 

“ _Mom!_ ”

He jerks. His elbow nearly knocks over the mug sitting beside him and a muffled curse escapes his lips as he rights it. At the same time, he hastily turns to look behind him. 

Bart’s fast asleep, but his leg is jogging against the couch so quickly it’s a wonder he hasn’t set the cushion on fire yet. His face is screwed up in a half-wail, mouth wide in a silent scream. Tim stares, aghast. Then he mentally kicks himself.

Memories float to the front of his mind as he pushes aside his laptop and closes the screens- Conner’s comforting murmur, Barbara’s quiet hum, Jaime’s awkward hand resting on a shoulder, Gar curling up as a dog up in Cassie’s lap. 

His brother’s carefully applied hugs and soft words.

Nightwing is good at comfort. Tim isn’t, his childhood never entrenched in the love his older brother's was, but he follows Dick’s lead as well as he can. 

“Bart?” he says cautiously, sliding back his chair and moving to his teammate’s side. “Bart, wake up. It’s just a dream-”

Except it’s not _just_ a dream. “Please,” Bart whimpers, twisting even further into the couch, curling up small as he can. “Please, no, Wally _don’t_ \- Dad-” 

His voice breaks on the last word and he groans again, tear-soaked face shiny in the white light of the Watchtower. Tim doesn’t know much about Bart’s guardians. What he does know is that despite their early deaths, they were better parents than Tim’s own.

“Bart,” he says, firmer this time, and kneels beside his friend. He shouldn’t shake the other boy awake. Stinging slaps and a very fast exit are hallmarks of Bart’s panic. Waiting it out is key. So Tim keeps calling his name, firm but never, ever loud, and eventually, the younger teen wakes up on his own. 

It’s a rude awakening, a bolt upright _look-around-where-am-I-am-I-safe?-is-there-danger?_ kind of waking up. Tim knows he has less than a second to grab Bart’s attention before he goes sprinting off to who knows where.

“Bart, it’s me,” he says, holding the other boy’s gaze as it snaps into focus. He’s shaking with the unspent adrenaline of nightmares, tears smearing his cheeks red, green eyes blown wide with fear. 

“You’re safe. We’re in the Watchtower. There’s nothing wrong. _We’re safe_.” 

Unbidden, his mind spins back to the reminiscences of before, of comforting hugs and pained grins and _his_ Team, Jaime and Cassie and Garfield and the broken, shattered boy in front of him, mere years younger but with the weight of a world gone utterly wrong on his shoulders. Bart clings to people- holds everyone close, an arm slung over Jaime’s shoulder here, a rib-crushing hug for Barry there, cuddling up with Cassie, laughing under Gar’s quite literal bear hug. A dying man wouldn’t clutch a raft as hard as the youthful speedster does his friends and family.

As Bart’s brain processes, Tim spreads his arms slightly. He’s still not used to this. It’s hard to know how open he needs to make his stance, where he has to balance to catch the weight. Does he rub circles on Bart’s back like Dick and Artemis do? Or does he just hold him and shush, like Conner and M’gann?

In the end, it doesn’t seem to matter: Bart doesn’t care. Tension unwinds from his lanky frame as he collapses against Tim, trembling. Tim readjusts to catch his weight, arms automatically coming up- awkward though it is- to hug back. 

Giving comfort isn’t something Tim knows how to do well. It’s a bit like receiving it that way. His friends are, though, and they’ve proven to be good teachers. 

“Sorry,” Bart mutters eventually, pulling back. Somehow his tears are mostly dry. He’s unnaturally adept at keeping his true distress from showing when he’s awake. The others- Dick, mostly- say Tim’s skilled at it too. According to them, it isn’t a good thing. 

He’s starting to see why. Both mental and physical hurt is a wound that needs salve and a bandage. Hiding it away under a sleeve only leaves it to fester, and creeps up to cripple you when you least expect it. 

“It’s okay,” he says, clearing his throat. “We’re here for you.” 

Bart smiles weakly, a rare instance of truthful expression.

“Thanks.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Endless, endless amounts of thanks goes out to my glorious, marvelous beta, [MashpotatoeQueen5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MashpotatoeQueen5). She had a huge hand in writing and editing this fic, and I can't say enough good things about her! She's got lots of incredible YJ fic, plus many other amazing works, so go check her out!
> 
> I don't know why, but it seems nearly all of my fics involve sleep in one way or another. (Maybe my brain's trying to tell me something about my own sleeping habits.) In other news, I have a longer fic in the works that's likely to be out in a month or two. If you're interested in more of my writing, keep an eye out for that!
> 
> Come chat with me on Tumblr! [eyrieofsynapses.tumblr.com](https://eyrieofsynapses.tumblr.com/).


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